I don’t buy the Leftist definition of racism which is that it is all related to power and privilege, that’s not how I’ve seen racism in the real world. Most of the racism that I’ve seen has been related to fear of the ‘other’ and it is a racism that runs all ways not just one way from white to black. Of course I’ve seen white people being racist towards black people but I’ve also seen black West Indians being racist towards Africans and vice versa, white Jews against black Jews, Asians against white and black along with racialised thinking aimed at the Maltese, Irish and Italians. Some Haredi Jews for example consider my family to be beyond the pale because we believe that it is not an abomination for a woman to stand on the bimah and read from the Torah. If we lived in an area dominated by Haredi Jews the my son would be the loneliest little boy in the world because he would be surrounded by other Jewish children who would not play with him because to them he is the ‘wrong’ sort of Jew. It is part of the human condition to sometimes fear and distrust those who are considered by them to be ‘other’ or who are different. The question is how to deal with this fear and distrust of ‘the other’?
A lot of this fear of the other can be ameliorated over time by contact between different individuals in a form of ground up multiracialism of the sort that is or rather was found in many port and dock areas in places like Britain. When everyone is poor, when everyone no matter what their skin colour is shat upon by the bosses, when everyone was equal in misery and nobody had an inside toilet, as was the case in the area I grew up in, people have little choice but to pull together in order to rise or they will all drown in despair separately. And we did rise together, there are no more ‘checkerboard alley’s’ with mixed race families huddling together for safety and security, like there was 70 or so years ago. Sensible people judge others by the content of their character not the colour of their skin.
When it comes to racial tension and racial violence when compared to places like the United States, Britain has been relatively lucky. Yes there has been racial tension and problems that have cut many different ways with sometimes black Britons being the victims and at other times White or Asian Britons getting the shitty end of the stick. But because Britain got out of the slavery game much earlier than the Americans did and we didn’t have the Jim Crow or voter suppression issues that poisoned race relations in the USA,what problems we have had have been considerably less than those that have afflicted the USA. Race, even now in the USA, is much more of a touchstone issue there than it is here and it should be kept that way. No Black Briton can claim that claim that they are afflicted by the burden of slavery, Britain abolished the slave traded in the early 19th century and spent millions of pounds using the Royal Navy to suppress the remnants of it. In the USA on the other hand slavery is much closer in time with the last person born into slavery only dying in 1948.
But although racism is somewhat of a constant in societies to a greater or lesser degree, lesser in places like the UK, greater and more open and vehement in places like China, racialism can bubble around at a low level, often luckily at such a low level that it can be safely ignored. In Britain today and for a long time previously we’ve increasingly treated each other, or at least have tried to, treat each other as equals.
However, it is possible to create racism. You can, if you work at it, divide people either deliberately by saying a person of such and such skin colour is the ‘enemy’ and it can be done by well meaning liberals going too far and dishing out services and jobs on the grounds of skin colour. It’s also possible to take minor or non-existent problems and create grievance and resentment and foment racism where once there was little. It is this latter path that the Black Lives Matter group and their far Left fellow travellers have done.
I have little doubt that although George Floyd was a man with a terrible criminal background and it was probably justified to take him into custody, but his death was not justified and that peaceful protest in the USA over his death should have occurred. But his death is no excuse for the violence that has erupted in the USA, violence that appears to have been aided and abetted by criminal terrorist groups like Antifa. There is also no excuse for the disruption, violence, disturbance and disrespect for things like the Cenotaph in London that BLM supporters and fellow travellers have brought to the UK. Racist murders or killings by police are not a thing in Britain, the number of these is microscopic when compared to the situation in the USA where such killings do seem to be disproportionate according to the writer Arch Kennedy a gay, conservative, Christian who points out in an article on his site that:
There were 41 police shootings that killed unarmed people in 2019. 20 of them were white, 10 were black, and 1 was another race. These stats are from the Washington Post’s Police Shooting Data Base. Blacks are 13% of the population and it is true that they are disproportionally killed.
This is in stark comparison with the UK where 85% of those who die in police custody are white. Also the causes of deaths in or following police custody are markedly different from the USA. The vast majority of the deaths in or following custody in the UK are drug or mental health related or caused by underlying health conditions. There were also quite a few deaths caused of car thieves who died whilst being pursued by police vehicles. Police violence of the sort seen in the USA is not a massive factor in custody deaths at least in modern Britain.
This shows that Britain is not the same as the USA, whilst we share a common language, our problems are markedly different. There is absolutely no rhyme, reason or excuse for BLM and their far Left fellow travellers and guides to behave as they are doing in Britain. In fact I believe that the BLM protests that are currently going on are going to end up being woefully counterproductive.
They are likely to undo all the good work that has been done at ground level between individuals to create a society where people are seen as equal no matter what the colour of their skin, they will as I said earlier, create racists. The BLM types will poison the image of Black Britons among both the majority White population and among other groups and this is going to cause immense problems. It will build suspicion of Black Britons where once there was none and create an image of Black Britons of being ungrateful,violent and demanding. Such an outcome would for me be a tragedy for this country. Since BLM set up shop in Britain I’ve noticed a greater willingness on the part of some White Britons to go online and describe Black Britons in bad ways, up to and including the ‘N’ word. This should never have happened and the fault for that lies fairly and squarely with BLM, the far Left and the cancer of identity politics.
Some of the things that Britain imports from the USA are worthwhile, such as Snap On tools for example but other things, such as rabid and divisive identity politics have been both useless and dangerous. BLM is an American import that Britain could well do without and it’s time for all Britons, no matter what our skin colour to denounce and distance ourselves from BLM before they do serious damage to the UK. To my Black fellow Britons I will tell you this. BLM and their backers in the middle class white Left are using you as pawns in a political chess game. They don’t care about you or your concerns, you are seen by them as just bodies on the streets, a tactic that they use to promulgate their twisted and destructive revolutionary politics. I know this because I myself was once a man of the Left. I saw for myself how the Left and especially the far Left used genuine concerns about racialism to advance their cause and for them the cause was always more important than the individuals who were afflicted by racialism.
BLM will not bring justice or fairness or anything else that is good, they will only bring destruction and feed and create racism against Black Britons, please, no matter what BLM say, remember that. BLM are not there to help when British Black communities produce individuals who victimise other Black Britons and neither are they there when poverty and drugs decimate the lives of the children and grandchildren of the Black Britons I grew up with, BLM are only in the game for themselves. They and their far Left backers are not helping Black Britons, they are abusing them and creating racism that will scar Britain for years.
Look at the people losing their jobs over critiscism of the BLM movement. Even mild stuff such as saying ‘ALL lives matter’.
Exactly! Just like that Manx Radio presenter who took what to those of us who take a moderate path and saying all lives matter is just common sense. The BLM thugs and loonies, who do not I must say at this point represent all Black Britons, don’t seem to care that they’ve damaged the image of Black Britons. As I said ATL, it took years of personal contact between people of different races, going right back to the Second World War, for the majority to cotton on to the MLK path of ‘content of character over colour of skin’ but these loonies have ruined that work by decent people of all races.
Don’t label all US citizens as evil b/c of BLM. BLM is a terrorist organization, an extension of antifa, created by George Soros to destroy societies as par of his plan for global government. He and Hillary are long standing members of the bilderberg group. This was planned decades ago and the only way to stop the venom is…thats right, cut off the head of the snake.
I would never dream of labeling ALL US citizens as evil because of the BLM/Marxists. These BLM/Marxists are the tiniest minority of a minority of US citizens. This group of utter and complete scum are no more representative of US citizens as they are representatives of hard working and equal Black British subjects (in Britain we are technically subjects not citizens). I agree with you that these terrorist demonstrations by BLM have been highly and thoroughly organised. From my vantage point I’ve seen Black US citizens completely let down by the Left and many of us are noticing that these riots are more often than not taking place in cities where the Left in the form of the Democrat party have been in charge sometimes for decades. It is the Left that has encouraged fatherless families in the Black community in the USA, it is the Left that has encouraged Black Americans to see themselves as victims rather than free citizens and the Left that has been supporting the violent disorder that has despoiled some US cities.
In my view BLM have set back race relations twenty years, not just in the USA but also in the United Kingdom as well. Not that the Left care about this one jot, all the Left care about is gaining and holding onto power.
I certainly agree that the best way to deal with the problem of Leftist violence would be to go after those who have funded, encouraged and supported this violence and the narrative that has helped to bring it about.
Although I’m not an American, I’ve liked many of the Americans that I have met over the years and I want to see America survive and thrive. This is why I’m praying hard that Mr Trump wins again in November because the alternative would be truly awful, not just for America and Americans, but for the entire West.
PS Any chance we could borrow your First Amendment? It is something that is sorely needed here in the UK where people are regularly arrested and sometimes imprisoned for their opinions and for telling jokes.
I’ve worked alongside people of many racial & linguistic varieties over the years – now retired I can say “ALL lives matter” without losing my job! But all those people were, regardless of their religion or the lack of one, decent, caring, honest and hard-working.
The difference with today’s street scum? Intelligence! (And education of course)
So I see our society divided on the lines of those capable of thinking for themselves and the rest (who will soon outnumber the bright, so we’re probably all doomed).
Very sad really, all these protests in U S and Europe.
Nigel Farage was sacked by LBC radio for speaking the truth.
Statues have been toppled by so called BLM protesters. Wrong, and unlawful.
Winston Churchill statue saved by PM Boris Johnson.
Mahatma Gandhi statue also being targeted by BLM supporters
Asian people gather around Gandhi statue to stop the mob from toppling it in U K.
So the white British people want to save Churchill statue, as they regard him as a hero.
Indian British people want to save Mahatma Gandhi statue as they believe he freed India from the British.
What has the world come to?
The BLM is trying to create division, race against race?
How is that good for U K?
As for racism I have experienced racism from both Black and White people in U K.
No race is innocent. BLM has ‘hidden agenda’.
All lives matter including animals.
Welcome to Fahrenheit211. I also despair at what the world is coming to. BLM are as you say bringing nothing but division. I look around soc media and I see more expressions of racialism being made now than before BLM started to misbehave like this. We are all human no matter what the colour of our skin, we have all sinned. Personally I believe t hat BLM does have agenda, a revolutionary Marxist one and if it succeeds, which I pray it does not, then like all Marxist revolutions it will end in failure and bloodshed.
I could not agree more with you. Especially with how these BLM terrorists have set back the race relations. I was thoroughly convinced that black and white people were on the verge of finally being considered equal to the extent you didn’t even need to know the color of your skin because it wasn’t a factor in life. But these BLM terrorists are destroying the decades of work it took to get there. And people being called racist because they say “All lives matter” is just insane. “PS Any chance we could borrow your First Amendment? It is something that is sorely needed here in the UK where people are regularly arrested and sometimes imprisoned for their opinions and for telling jokes.” I was not aware of that, that’s crazy that you woulud be arrested for speaking your mind, a God given right. In these dark times we’re living in we cannot let the light dim and go out. It requires energy and drive to keep it lit, unlike the darkness which just exists idly, and creeps in where the light goes out.
Like you I look back on the days when people were judged by the colour of their skin with horror. I was brought up in a port area where my grandmother owned a cafe. The world went by her window, Jamaicans and Indians and guys in North Korean Mao suits from the ships. I was brought up to follow MLK’s maxim of judging a person by the content of their character not the colour of their skin. BLM have indeed undone decades of good work and I grieve for that loss and fear for the future because genuine racialists are exploiting the abject horror that the vandals of BLM are behaving. It’s not racist to say ‘All Lives Matter’, it’s just common sense.
As for the lack of free speech in the UK it is indeed a terrible problem. In 2016 there were over 3,500 Britons arrested or prosecuted for the opinions that they had expressed online. A YouTuber by the name of Count Dankula was prosecuted for a joke video that he made to wind up his girlfriend where he taught her pug dog to give a right arm salute and I myself found myself arrested for a speech crime back in October last year for referring to an Islamic activist as a ‘taqiyya artist’ See here for more details on this https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2020/02/25/hate-speech-arrest-update-25th-february-2020/
It is one of the greatest of ironies that it was from British thinkers on the subject of Liberty and the 1689 Bill of Rights that sprang the desire of America’s Founding Fathers to create the First Amendment, yet in Britain such freedoms no longer exist. It’s going to be very difficult to bring back as under our constitution one Parliament cannot bind a successor Parliament. The only true hope I can see to get free speech back is either for a new party committed to free speech to arise or these restrictions on speech to be ignored by British subjects en masse thereby clogging up the courts or by amending the 1689 Bill of Rights to extend the free speech rights held by members of parliament and peers of the realm to every Briton.